


The roots of your suffering.

by IceBreeze



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Minor Body Horror, POV Second Person, Renison Week, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-30 20:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8548624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceBreeze/pseuds/IceBreeze
Summary: It all started with a smell.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution for Renisonweek Day 2: Favourite AU. I have an inordinate amount of fondness for Hanahaki disease au's because I find the idea of it fascinating and wanted to try to experiment with writing styles, so here have this. 
> 
> For those who don't know, The Hanahaki Disease is an illness born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. The infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the petals.
> 
> In case you are interested, the flowers Renee has are Primroses. Because I tried to do flower language and probably failed but I liked it. And just a couple of things to note before you start ::
> 
> This is an AU where Neil and Kevin have yet to join the foxes, so Seth is still alive and everyone's still in a pretty bad place. Andrew is not on his medication. There is minor body horror (at least I think it's body horror, maybe) in the final scene and Renee is (probably) darker than canon, as I believe the disease to be like a parasite, twisting the mind as well as the body.


It all started with a smell. Allison had been the one to point it out because of course she was, it wouldn’t have been ironic enough otherwise and if there was thing life liked, it was irony. So the conversation had kicked it all off:

“Have you been using a new perfume?”

“Hm?”

“You smell like flowers.”

You hadn’t and yet, when you took the moment to search, you did. It was strange, it shouldn’t have mattered and yet (because there was always a yet or a but, nothing could ever be simple), from that point on it was all you could notice. Invasive, the stench followed you everywhere- seeping into your nose, your lungs, your heart, forcing out a cough. It was cloying- saccharine, sickly, poisonous- clinging to you like a parasite.

_(You couldn’t breathe; you wanted it gone you wanted it gone **you want it gone** )._

You tried to scrub it from your skin in a fit of desperation, rubbing until your skin ached and your hands felt numb, but it wouldn’t go. It wouldn’t leave you alone. Everywhere you went the smell of flowers followed you, like a shadow, and people would stare. People noticed and it made them actually look at you and you wanted to scream because they wouldn’t give you a moment to breathe.

You hated flowers.

_(It all started with the smell)._

* * *

They had a party, a celebration, yet to you it felt more like a funeral. Allison was curled against Seth’s side, face content and delighted in a way that you hadn’t seen in a long time, bottles raised in a cheer. His arm was draped around her, embracing her in a way that made something bitter fester in your heart, their hands clasped. The matching rings glinted at you like a mockery, pain buried behind your smile. But no-one saw, because they were all happy for the couple, and they wouldn’t think to search for what you tried so hard to keep invisible.

_(You’d always been good at hiding)._

They were also drunk enough that the world was blurred beneath the buzz, and, in a momentary impulse, you decided that for once- just this once, just to get you through this hell- you didn’t want to be sober anymore. You wanted to numb the pain, you wanted it gone. And yet, as you tipped the shot glass back to whoops and cheers, it tasted like shame. Like yearning.

_(Like a want that will never be filled)._

A weight settled in your throat and somehow you didn’t think it was the alcohol.

* * *

You coughed and your lungs burnt in exertion, fatigue adding to the heaviness in your chest, and it felt like your equipment was weighing you down to the earth, to hell, to _something_. Every step tugged at your lungs, like there was something growing in there, something trying to drag you down and down and down until you crashed in a wreck of your own making. The locker room felt so far away.

You coughed and your throat closed up, the sickening sweetness pooling up and making you gag. Your throat felt tight, clogged up- like someone was strangling you, constricting you, trying to force out words that you couldn’t say. _Wouldn’t_ say. You felt like you were drowning in your own silence and the pain was blossoming every passing day. Allison’s arm was like ice against your shoulder, a reminder that stung, you loathed it, wanted her away from you yet longed for her to never let go.

You coughed and flowers burst forth.

* * *

When you regained awareness of the world around you- one that wasn’t made up of a pain in your chest, in your throat, _in your lungs_ \- you were on the floor. Hands were shaking you and there were voices, there were faces, everything blurring together in a mess of sound and touch and sight that left your head reeling. You couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t focus on anything beyond the tingling in your throat and the obtrusive stench that clung to every cell. Your sight blurred and bent and belatedly you realized that your hands were bleeding from where your nails had dug in, the sting shoved aside in the chaos.

_(You felt something crumpled inside them, something alien)._

Disconnected, your gaze lowered as you slowly uncurling your fingers one by one until your palm lay flat in front of you. And then you felt nausea lurch inside you because, in the center of your palm, sat flower petals. Tiny ones that beamed obnoxiously up at you, the yellow so bright, so obvious, that you wanted to strangle them, to set them on fire, to do something to get rid of them because _why._

Vibrant, perfect, beautiful, they looked innocent- pure,even- like they weren’t offensive. Perverse.

_(A violation of your very being)._

You felt repulsed at the sight, the smell, the sensation. The weight in your throat worsened, an insistent push, and then you realised _oh. So something could grow, after all._

_(There was love and it was poisoning you)._

For a moment, you stared in silence as understanding came crashing down. And then you began to laugh. You laughed and you coughed and then you laughed some more because the irony was sour in your mouth and you burned with it, you burned burned _burned,_ because there were flowers in your throat, in your mind, in your hand, and it felt like you were in hell. The petals in your hands crinkled as your grip tightened, hoping to strangle them, to wring the life from them as your breathing sped up and your eyes began to spin. The hands on your back moved away and the world fell into darkness.

_(The petals were sweet in your mouth and you wondered if this was what death tasted like)._

* * *

Andrew drove you to the hospital in silence, only the hum of the engine and the sound of your coughing between you. You went in alone because you didn’t want anyone in there with you, your throat tightening at the sight of so much white and you wondered, vaguely, if this would be a regular thing from now on. If the sight of hospital would soon become your friend.

_(The petals in your hand felt like a yes)._

The doctor looked at you with pity in her eyes and that was all the confirmation you needed. She offered treatment ideas, books filled with information, even showed you diagrams of what the surgery would be like, but you refused. You didn’t want to be cured. You didn’t want to remove the flower.

_(You didn’t want to remove your thoughts of her)._

You knew it was foolish- that you’d die simply because you couldn’t come out and say three fucking words- but you didn’t want to lose these feelings. You were in love and it blistered, it hurt, it. Fucking. _Sucked_ , but you were in love and those feelings would never be returned. And yet, you were in love and you clung to that, to the knowledge that you could feel such a thing, to the idea that you were truly human.  In the time before- before you were a person, before the foxes, before Stephanie- you didn’t believe someone like you could find love. You didn’t believe it necessary, every day was simply concerned with survival.

Now you’d proved yourself wrong, you’d gained true confirmation that you were granted a second chance and, even if it was painful, even if it was fruitless-

_(even when it killed you)_

\- you didn’t want to let it go.

_(You were going to die. That was a fact, one you’d come to terms with a long time ago._

_And as far as you were concerned, dying from love wasn’t a bad way to go)._

* * *

“Is it Reynolds?”

You looked over at Andrew in for a moment before remembering how much he saw, how he knew you better than anyone, and understood that it actually wasn’t surprising he was the one to notice. The only one. You nodded, a simple confirmation, and he scoffed, face scrunching up slightly:

“You have awful taste.”

You laughed and for a moment, the ache in your throat went away.In that car with Andrew’s steady presence and his complete lack of pity, you felt lighter than you had in months and you cherished the feeling. When silence returned between you, you welcomed it and for a while, it remained as though nothing was wrong, as though you weren’t resigning yourself to death.

But then he offered you a cigarette. It was unusual, not even because you didn’t smoke. He horded cigarettes, never letting another soul touch them, going so far as to nearly stab his own brother for trying to take one. If it were another day you may have refused. You almost did but then your throat tightened as if to warn you, to remind you, and you decided that it really didn’t matter.

_(The thick smell of smoke was a welcome relief from the flowers)._

* * *

The team reacted poorly, as you had anticipated, with only Andrew remaining indifferent, but the most vehement were Dan and Allison. They were desperate in their denial, begging you to do the surgery, refusing to accept the reality. Their voices rose higher when you wouldn’t budge, reaching shouts as though they could reason with you, but it was a futile effort. Allison’s eyes were wide with worry- with grief, sorrow, desperation and something you couldn’t read- and a small part of you- the vindictive part you thought long dead- felt gratified. There was a satisfaction in it, the knowledge that you were there in her heart.

_(That if you went down, you’d drag her with you. That she would be scarred for killing you)._

The more reasonable part of you was felt guilty, felt like you were being unreasonable, that you were drowning in your own spite. You had to shake yourself to look objectively at the situation, to push away the mist from your eyes and actually think. You didn’t want her to suffer-

_(you did you did you did)_

\- so you smiled and opened your mouth. The words bloomed like flowers-  deceitful, pretty and wrong _wrong **wrong**._

_(For a moment, you wondered when you had become so like the things you hated, when you’d turned into one of them. But then you realized. You always did hate yourself)._

* * *

The flowers continued to grow, nurtured by the pain in your heart, but the world moved on without you, leaving you to rot in a grave of your own making. Allison became Allison Gordon, the wedding a beautiful affair that left you surrounded by hundreds of primroses that laughed at you, mocked you, and you felt like you were suffocating.

_(You couldn’t breathe, throat crushed beneath the weight and you thought that you would die right there and then.  
_

_Looking back, perhaps that wouldn’t have been so bad)._

* * *

Your coughing fits became more frequent, the petals coming up in greater volumes. Your throat burnt with words you refused to say, chest buried under the persistent weight that never stopped growing.

And it hurt all the time. You could barely move without setting off another fit, your hands stained in colour. The smell was always there- a sweetness that suffocated you, as alluring as it was sickening- cradling you in its arms as it tried to lull you to sleep.

_(To death)._

You coughed and the petals stuck in your throat, but this time it felt different- it felt wrong. Wet and sticky and _wrong_. Your body burned but your chest felt like ice amongst it all, the heaviness reaching a level that you couldn’t bear, you couldn’t stand, you wanted it out already. You coughed and tears seared your cheeks, throat closing up, and instead of petals staining your hands, it was blood.

_(Crimson where there was once yellow)._

You were being crushed from all sides, words trapped in the roots that spread throughout your chest. Coughing again, the sound weak in your throat, and a flurry of petals splattered forth, blood clinging to them like a beacon and you understood.

_(This was the moment you would die)._

You coughed and thought of Andrew, of the final cigarette you shared, of the rare times you saw him smile, of the sparring sessions that gave you relief when nothing else could, and your eyes slipped shut.

You coughed and thought of Stephanie, of the warmth she gave you when you though none existed, of how she helped you change when it seemed impossible, of the place you called home, and your lips curled into a smile.

You coughed and thought of Allison, of her brilliance of how she took your breath-

_(and your life)_

-away of how she was so honest she seemed to glow-

_(she would punch you if she knew the reason you died, the reason you refused to save yourself. She would break your nose and then your heart)_

-of how you love her-

_(loved, hated, love)_

-to death.

You dragged in one final breath-

_(rasping, choking, drowning, so many petals so much blood, it hurts, you’re dying, it hurts)_

-and then the roots coiled around your lungs squeezed-

_(it hurts)_

-and then

you

drowned.

_(buried beneath your own feelings- a poison, a parasite that stole everything from you. You died and all that remained was the blossom of words that were never heard)._

* * *

Two days passed before Allison arrived, two long days of absolute stillness, and she was the first to visit. She marched like a woman going to war, armed with alcohol, chocolate and an argument to convince Renee to stop fucking around and undergo surgery already, but she was doubtful. She didn’t think anything could convince her.

_(She felt like she was talking to a painting when with Renee, she couldn’t read her anymore.  
_

_She couldn’t understand and that hurt more than she’d like to admit)._

She knocked once, only silence answered. She knocked twice, feeling the vague twinges of worry. The third time something cold settled in her stomach, panic rearing it’s ugly head as she thought of what could have happened, and she felt her heart stop. Face draining of colour, she drew back, movements frantic as she jammed the spare key into the door, pushing it open and then-

_(Renee, sweet smiling Renee who was warm like sunshine and always there, always needed, always loved)_

\- she screamed. For there- surrounded by blood so much blood oh my god- was Renee;

still

pale

and _dead._

 _(she was gone and in her place was something foreign, something_ _awful and horrifying and God-)  
_

She gagged, legs crumpling under her as she stared at the body lying violated before her. Corrupted. Twisted, used when she should be allowed to rest, to sleep, to have peace in death where she never had it in life- but that wasn’t possible, not now. Not ever. Because from her corpse- with gnarled roots that wound around her entire body, deforming her, trapping her- was a flower.

Allison began to shake and within her, the world shattered. And as the sound of panicked voices approached, footsteps pounding against the wood, inside her she felt something fester, a small bitter seed that took root in her heart.

In that moment, a flower began to grow.

_(They say that love is the strongest feeling in the world, but that is a lie. The strongest thing comes after love has fallen- after a failure._

_The strongest roots grow from death)._

**Author's Note:**

> Can be found on my[ tumblr, polyhymina.](http://polyhymina.tumblr.com/writings)


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